The last time I interviewed Ben Gibbard, he seemed somewhat ashamed to admit that he was a bit stung by all the lukewarm reviews that greeted Death Cab for Cutie’s 2005 breakthrough, Plans. Of course, you’d expect as much for an artist who is obviously a sensitive soul, a man who finds romantic implications in every act, no matter how seemingly mundane. Not that such a backlash was in any way surprising, as the previously prototypical indie rock band was certain to receive such a backlash when they jumped to a major label and found themselves near the top of the Billboard Top 200. But Gibbard seemed so disarmingly hurt by it all; it was as if he never considered it could happen. For those who want to read between the lines, Narrow Stairs, Death Cab’s first album since the divorce from their indie roots, sounds like a breakup album.

An album rooted in despair and dejection, the seventh Death Cab disc finds Gibbard at his most conflicted, writing a series of songs that are smarting with lonesomeness and confusion. There’s a song set at the wedding of a lonely protagonist awkwardly entering a marriage out of fear of being alone (“Cath…”) and one where a spreading fire comes to represent the feelings of impending doom felt by a couple on the precipice of breaking up (“Grapevine Fires”). Even math becomes a metaphor for isolation, as the leftover remainder in the punchy “Long Division” comes to symbolize solitude, and the decision to downsize to a smaller bed becomes a telling sign of a woman’s realization that she’s doomed to a life of loneliness. Even their most sunny songs come with a dark edge, as the breezy power pop of “No Sunlight” masks a coming of age story where the optimism of youth gives way to a mature sense of isolation. But despite a good deal of navel-gazing and downtrodden sentiments, it’s not an entirely somber affair. There’s a good bit of rebelliousness in the mix, too.

As if to drive home the point that they aren’t trying to capitalize on
their newfound fame, they open the album with two tracks that appear to
be designed to chase away anyone with a short attention span. “Bixby
Canyon Bridge” awakens through a wall of murmuring ambient feedback,
with a smattering of rising and falling guitar notes and neatly
distorted guitar tones forming the backdrop for Gibbard’s picturesque
walk through Big Sur, searching for the ghost of Jack Kerouac while
pondering how “it’s hard to want to stay away, when everyone you meet /
they all seem to be asleep.” Buzzy knots of guitar feedback and muffled
vocals form an extended bridge before everything fades back to where it
started, back to a simple, evocative vocal melody, as Gibbard goes home
with the uneasy knowledge that he isn’t any closer to figuring out what
he’s looking for than Kerouac was. The following “I Will Possess Your
Heart” is even more daring, as the album’s first single builds through
four and a half minutes of echo-laden piano lines and walking bass
figures before finally arriving at the song’s central hook, rendering
the song’s title as more of a threat than a promise.

For such a resolutely inoffensive songwriter as Gibbard, the album’s
darker moments are truly startling. It’s not clear who the target of
“Talking Bird” is, but Gibbard has rarely sounded so nasty, writing
about a person trapped in a cage of confusion and self-abuse, never
knowing that the door was open the whole time. “Though you know so few
words, they’re on infinite repeat, like your brain can’t keep up with
your beak,” he coos innocently over a darkly thudding backdrop of dark
guitar strums and tambourine strikes. Even the album’s most whimsical
track, the playfully organ-driven “You Can Do Better Than Me” is laced
with self-effacement, with the protagonist explaining that he thinks
about leaving his lover but that he doesn’t because “you can do better
than me, but I can’t do better than you.”

Sonically, the album is a bit more hard-edged than previous Death Cab
releases, with the Radiohead-aping “Pity and Fear” almost sounding like
Ok Computer outtake, with the melancholy guitar lines exploding into a
dark curtain of feedback that drapes itself over thundering drums and
desperate yelps. Such moments might scare away the Starbucks set, but
they also help create what is probably the most live sounding album in
the Death Cab oeuvre, highlighting the band’s otherwise unheralded
interaction between guitarist/producer Chris Walla’s richly organic
arrangements and the rhythm section’s impeccably tight interplay. More
than ever before, drummer Jason McGerr plays a prominent role in the
mix, his loose-limbed grooves and always imaginative drum fills adding
a crisp backbeat for songs that are occasionally a bit too
middle-of-the-road for their own good. But while the production and
arrangements are often easy-to-please, it’s hard to say that Gibbard
has sugarcoated his writing in any way, as the moody tone of his lyrics
is often at odds with the more accessible nature of the songwriting.

Since Narrow Stairs debuted at the top slot of the Billboard Top 200,
it’s not likely that Death Cab is going to reclaim their indie cred any
time soon. But having weathered the storm of becoming one of the
biggest bands in the world when their hearts remained in the sweaty
underground clubs that propelled them to their success, they seem to be
in a good place, free to make a depressed, slightly moody album that
edges them back toward their more experimental roots. But, in the end,
Death Cab for Cutie has never really been about experimentation or
indie cred; their essential aesthetic is now, as always, songs that
resonate with urgency that is understood by every person who has had a
broken heart or a crisis of identity. To that extent, Narrow Stairs is
as much a Death Cab record as anything they’ve ever done.

Sound
A bit more adventurous than the overly staid Plans, Narrow Stairs
pretty much sounds like the mostly live-in-the-studio album that it is.
Throughout, Gibbard’s vocals are placed high and clear in the mix,
allowing his storytelling to come through as it should. Elsewhere,
producer/guitarist Walla applies reverb and echo on nearly everything,
creating a dry and often intentionally muddled sound, favoring a
visceral wall-of-sound thud over the pristine intricacies of their past
releases. As such, it doesn’t require high quality equipment to be able
to hear the album in all of its instinctual glory, but better speakers
will be able to pick apart some of the layers of content.